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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

US Bishops Push Immigration Reform with Legislators

During the summer slowdown, the USCCB keeps up the pressure on Congress to reform immigration regulations.

As summer winds
down and the congressional August recess dwindles, the efforts of the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other advocates of immigration reform
are still at a high level.

“We’re in a lull,
but it’s an important lull,” said Kevin Appleby, the USCCB’s point man on immigration.
“We’re trying to rev up support in the dioceses and districts to make sure that
[congressional] representatives know they’ve got support for this….. What
happens from the first of August to the ninth of September will help determine
the final outcome of what happens in Congress. If all goes well, they’ll pass
some measures in October, put them together and conference them with the Senate
and we’ll have a fairly good bill by the end of the year.”

"Over the August recess we’re encouraging
people to get the message out to their representatives that we need to fix our
broken immigration system,” said Kim
Daniels, spokeswoman for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the US Conference
of Catholic Bishops. “We’re called to help our brothers and
sisters who are living in the shadows, and we want to take that message to our
representatives so that we can pass immigration reform."

Most observers
consider the bipartisan immigration reform bill the US Senate passed in June to
have little chance of being introduced in the House of Representatives. House
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is insisting that any immigration bill brought to
the floor of the House have the support of a majority of the Republican
conference. But a number of bills have been introduced in the House to reform
various aspects of immigration policy, including one that would provide 20,000
additional Border Patrol agents, 350 miles of fence, and billions of dollars
for security.

Another is the
Kids Act, introduced by Reps. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the House Majority Leader,
and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which would
provide a path to legalization for children who were brought here as infants by
parents who entered the country without proper authorization.

President Barack
Obama has been pushing for immigration reform to address the problem of the 11
million undocumented immigrants in the country, and many Republicans are trying
to balance a need to gain support from the growing Hispanic-American
demographic with the need to address the concerns of more conservative
constituents, many of whom oppose giving a break to immigrants who “jumped the
line” ahead of those who went through the proper channels to live and work here
legally.

The bishops’
conference also is calling for research into the reasons why people decide to
come to this country—and find ways to address the problems that spur them to
leave their own country.